most of them flip back and for between real and virtual - George Foy's The Shift and William Gibson's Neuromancer, for example. - Rob

Donna Andrews has a cosy series where the sleuth is a computer with a personality and a couple of the books take place almost entirely in Turing's "world" (the computer is Turing Hopper) - Bernadette

Also I'd argue William Gibson's Neuromancer is crime fiction though it usually gets put in the sci-fi genre 'cos most of it takes place in cyberspace (or the matrix) but it pretty much fits the definition of crime noir where a burned-out thief has to continue committing crimes to get out of a bind he's in - Bernadette

Sorry Rob - didn't see you'd already covered Gibson. But what about Asimov's Elijah Bayley series? There's definitely a whole lot of virtual world happening in those, particularly Robots of Dawn - Bernadette

Minority Report by Philip K Dick - a short story (a longish one) I have in a collection with others by him, all of which combine crime and sci fi elements. Minority Report was made into a film of course, starring Tom Cruise. Another Dick novel or story (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) was made into Blade Runner, which is a crime/sci fi mix. H G Wells was quite crime-ish on occasion, and certainly strange sci fi worldy (eg War of The Worlds, Invisible Man). - Maxine

Thanks for the great suggestions. I'm giving a short talk to librarians on Second Life and other virtual worlds. I thought I'd suggest some related books - Kerrie